MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding 18-22 long RNAs, which act as key mediators in many cellular processes involved in tumorigenesis including proliferation, differentiation, invasion, and apoptosis. miRNAs repress gene expression by inhibiting...

The stress response is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism critical for survival that requires orchestration of different systems in the body. Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons of the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN)...

An understanding of the pathways responsible for differentiation in pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) would accelerate their translation to medical therapies. Specifically, studies that identify criteria for the better design of experiments targeting...

The most common site of prostate cancer (PC) metastasis is the bone resulting in painful bone disease and complications. The majority of prostate cancer lesions exhibit an osteoblastic i.e. bone formation, and one factor that may play an important...

Background: Chronic wounds are a serious medical condition affecting over 6 million people in the United States. Biofilms, which are communities of bacteria attached to a surface and protected by a polysaccharide coating, are intimately associated...

An Honors Thesis Presented to The University Honors Program of Loyola University New Orleans In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with University Honors

The retinoic acid-related orphan receptor alphas (RORalphas), which include 4 isoforms, are members of the nuclear receptor superfamily. Previous studies showed that RORalphas are expressed and functional in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. In this...

The cytochrome P450 gene superfamily has representatives in most living organisms and the gene regulatory mechanism seems to have been conserved over an evolutionary time period of more than two billion years. The P450 enzyme is responsible for...

Soft tissue reconstruction in the nervous system is sensitive to the mechanical and chemical cues of the growth microenvironment. Many technologies have been designed to study these stimuli and their effect on the regional extracellular environment...

One of the most well characterized insulin signaling cascades is activation of the p42/44 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway, also known as extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK1/2). However, little is known about the mechanism by...

Inflammation is a driving force behind various lethal pathological conditions, including atherosclerosis and cancer metastasis. Inflammatory mediators are keys that unlock the immune response via triggering interactions of leukocytes and vascular...

It has been known for over three quarters of a century that Vitamin A and its derivatives (retinoids) are essential for both normal embryonic development and in the maintenance of adult tissues (Collins and Mao, 2000). Classical data demonstrated...